“John Thomas York has long been known as the Yadkin Bard. But he is also a poet of the vast reaches of the night sky, of deep memory, of wonder. His voice is distinctive, fresh, bringing to life a world long forgotten, of work, of struggle, of family bonds and community. I know of few poets who recreate so effectively the awe and aching immediacy and imaginative intensity of childhood. It is a pleasure to welcome the abundance, the full range of achievement, of Cold Spring Rising, which has both the sweetness and thrilling sting of the coldest and boldest spring water.”

— Robert Morgan, author of Gap Creek and Terroir

“John Thomas York's technical skill is remarkable: his melodic use of word music and rhythmic (though often unmetered) cadences, his vivid images that make the world new, his precise words zinging like surely-shot arrows. These bring us aesthetic pleasure as well as meaning—and the meanings probe his world with courage as well as insight. An award-winning teacher who prizes truth as well as art, he remembers his farm childhood as through a golden haze, but not once does he slip into sentimentality. And when shadows come, as they must, whether he stumbles, falls, or comes up dancing, his work is, finally, a hymn of gratitude.” — Sally Buckner, editor of Word and Witness: 100 Years of North Carolina Poetry

“John Thomas York tunes a guitar strung from the stars to the dirt of a farm where memories grow. The melody may catch on tobacco or hemlocks, cobwebs or sleet, a dog or a dental appointment or the fate of a loon. And the voice shows a solid, barefoot familiarity with every setting, even when it's a two-ton Chevy flatbed that's left the ground.”

John Thomas York was educated at Appalachian State, Wake Forest, and Duke, and he has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He has also been a Mellon Fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as well as a recipient of fellowships from the Council for Basic Education and the National Endowment for the Humanities. For over thirty years he has taught English in the public schools. In 2003 he was named Teacher of the Year by the North Carolina English Teachers Association. His work has appeared in many regional journals, as well as in anthologies such as Word and Witness: 100 Years of North Carolina Poetry and The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume III: Contemporary Appalachia. He has previously published three chapbooks, Picking Out, Johnny's Cosmology, and, in 2010, Naming the Constellations, the last published by Spring Street Editions of Sylva, NC. In 2011, he received the first annual James Applewhite Poetry Prize from the North Carolina Literary Review. He and his wife, Jane McKinney York, live in Greensboro, where they have raised their daughters, Elizabeth, Kathryn, and Rachel.

Cover artist Jan Jílek was born in the Czech Republic in 1989 in a small city in North Moravia called Zabreh. He studied at a technical high school and continues his studies at the University of Economics in Prague with a focus on Business Administration. His dream is to move to the United States and start a successful photography business.

Jan has been involved in photography since 2008 when he bought his first compact camera. About a year later, he purchased a DSLR (Digital Single-Lens Reflex) camera. Jan says, “My passion for photography has no limits: it is how I work and relax, both at the same time. Thanks to hard work, I was able to become one of Canon's representatives and also one of their photographers. Making photos for one of the largest companies in the industry is a huge success and great honor.”